The invention concerns a method for determining transmission data.
Many vehicles and parts of vehicles currently contain computer-assisted information and control systems. These usually comprise of a multiplicity of sensors which are positioned at different places in the vehicle, to register different states in the vehicle and effects upon the vehicle and to pass them on as electric signals to a control device. The maintenance of the vehicle and components thereof is subject to constant observation. Necessary servicing of the vehicle is also assisted and favored by including integrated monitoring and servicing indications in the vehicle""s electronic control mechanisms. The servicing intervals can thus be arranged flexibly and independently of a single determining parameter such as the number of kilometers covered.
U.S. No. 5,642,284 has disclosed a system for implementing flexible intervals for servicing which detects characteristics of a prime mover of the vehicle and determining therefrom an interval servicing that is adapted to the conditions of the vehicle. But this method and the values determined cannot be used for detecting transmission characteristic values as evaluation data in relation with other components of the drive chain.
The problem on which this invention is based is to present a method for determining values for transmissions of vehicles.
The problem is solved by a method according to the preamble of claim 1. Developments are objects of sub-claims.
In modern vehicles the transmission control or a superimposed vehicle master controller has available, as result of technical data transmitted through a databus, a variety of signals from different subsystems, such as ABS, ASR, EBS, EDB or retarders which, by applying appropriate algorithms, can be used together with the signals from the transmission for determining the actual and accumulated load of the transmission and auxiliaries thereof.
According to the invention a method is proposed for determining evaluation data for a transmission in a vehicle which includes the steps of measuring data in the vehicle, determining intermediate data from said measured data and then determining evaluation data from the measured data and the intermediate data. In an advantageous embodiment, the intermediate data includes, separately or in combination, the vehicle weight, the tractional resistance, the number of starting operations of the vehicle, the friction work accumulated in the vehicle clutch, the maximum oil temperature that has occurred, or the operation time of the transmission. In one development of the method, the data determined in the transmission controls are stored to be protected against overwriting. In a variant of the invention, the data memory of the transmission control is such that the stored data can only be read via access authorization controls. In one development, the data can be transmitted via telemetry from the vehicle to a central data center or, in another development, can be displayed in the vehicle. The evaluation data for the transmission can be synchronized with evaluation data for other components of the drive chain of the vehicle in order to find an optimized data evaluation moment for several components.